a. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a driver circuit for an indicator of an ac signal level, and more particularly to an indicator driving circuit for driving an indicator of a high frequency signal level such as a meter for use of tuning indication in a radio receiver circuit.
B. Description of the Prior Art
In a radio receiver circuit for FM and/or AM broad-casting, a tuning indicator is often used for indicating the level of the received signal. Various types of such indicators have been proposed. Generally, a received high frequency (HF) signal or the intermediate frequency (IF) signal formed by frequency-converting the HF signal is detected and rectified for driving the indicator such as a meter. When the driving energy is not large enough, the signal may be amplified or an indicator of very high sensitivity has been used.
The former method of utilizing the HF signal, however, is accompanied by the disadvantage that the characteristics of the receiver are affected due to the waveform distortion by the detection, sensitivity drop, output level lowering, beats by the harmonic generated in detection, etc. since the HF signal is treated. Thus, the utilization of the HF signal is undesirable from the practical point of view. Further, since additional circuits such as a detecting circuit and an amplifier for the tuning indication are connected in the HF signal line according to the above method, the total circuit structure will be complicated to raise the manufacturing cost and also to introduce some deterioration factors of lowering the performance.
On the other hand, the latter method of utilizing the IF signal was also accompanied by the following drawback. Namely, the AM receiver circuit is usually provided with an automatic gain control (AGC) circuit for lowering the gain when an intense signal is received and for raising the gain when a weak signal is received so as to hold the output at a constant level. This AGC circuit has a certain time constant and cannot follow very rapid changes of the level of the received signal. Therefore, when the tuning dial is manipulated, the receiver circuit may momentarily receive a very intense signal with the AGC circuit set at the maximum gain. This will cause the over-driving or overshooting of the indicator meter. Namely, the meter indicates a high level momentarily and then becomes stable at a lower level. This is apparently not preferable indication. For preventing such over-driving, a special time constant circuit, etc. should be provided in the driver of the meter. Then, the circuit structure becomes complicated and the manufacturing cost increases.
This invention is made based on the consideration of the above problems and intended to solve the over-driving of the meter by a simple circuit.